I usually keep my pairs in tanks that are 5-10 gallons. They can be surprisingly aggressive towards each other at times so I like to give the female some space to get away.

I want a pair out of these guys because their father mouthbroods and I want to see if it is a genetic trait rather than just environmental.

Just came back from the aquarium where I got some blackworms and three really sweet looking pieces of goldvine to go in with my wilds. The males have been squabbling a bit so want to give them more hiding places until my females grow out more and I can sell off some pairs.

All the tanks have sponge filters in them. Because of the amount of leaf litter and organic matter in the tanks, if I don't have at least some water movement I tend to get a build-up of detritus on the glass and the water starts to smell a bit ripe.

My males all spawn and rear fry with the sponge filter going. I only turn it off if the film canister keeps floating into the wall because of the current.

My God, it's like a tsunami of fry. Look at all that BBS in their bellies.

I am forever finding fry in with my males and females. I am harsh on the 'free range' fry. They get normal water changes, no food but what they scrounge from the tank (although I usually do toss in the odd serving of BBS/grindals/MWs) until they get of a big enough size that they start eating with their parents.

It's surprising how many fry start to crawl out of the woodwork once they get big enough and fast enough not to be lunch for their siblings.

My God, it's like a tsunami of fry. Look at all that BBS in their bellies.

I am forever finding fry in with my males and females. I am harsh on the 'free range' fry. They get normal water changes, no food but what they scrounge from the tank (although I usually do toss in the odd serving of BBS/grindals/MWs) until they get of a big enough size that they start eating with their parents.

It's surprising how many fry start to crawl out of the woodwork once they get big enough and fast enough not to be lunch for their siblings.

Yes, thats one of the main reason why i use a smaller tank for breeding so that all the frys will get to eat and grow together so bigger ones wont eat smaller ones. because smaller tank means food is easy to find. With a big tank frys would be everywhere and food will be hard for them to find and some of them will just end up starving and die. This particular spawn i only see 5 dead so far

Yeah I have also found that I get less deaths when growing out my fry in smaller tanks. However, I usually only have 20-50 in a 7 gallon tank, not as many as you seem to have there.

Once saw one of my uberis juveniles waiting for all the newborn fry to leave the nest. Then it came along and ate down several of them before they could get away. Next time I saw some of the younger ones they were quick enough that the juvenile couldn't catch them and so they survived.

I've found once they hit a certain age/size they stop hiding and come out a lot more. It seems to be when they are about 1/2 an inch to an inch in size.

So excited. Female in this picture, has been following her father around the tank with him flaring and her extremely plump and barred up. Looks like I may see some spawning action soon from them. She's not very big, so will see what comes of it.